how has your musical taste held up?

[alocispepraluger102]

does music you loved 20, 30, or 40 years ago still sound as good to you?

if it still sounds fine, is perhaps familiarity or association the reason? if it doesn't sound as good, is it because the familiar, out of style or acceptance, dead, or frozen bores you?

my taste hasn't changed much, but i often overrate music i'm hearing for the first time.

Edited April 9, 2012 by alocispepraluger102

[A Lark Ascending]

Some does, some doesn't.

I suspect a lot of the rock I still listen to I enjoy in spite of its limitations - I'd probably not tolerate some of the arthritic rhythm in new music (an almost instant turn off). Layers of nostalgia have rendered much of the music of my past immune from rejection.

There's very little that I've been drawn to at some point that fails to give me pleasure to some degree.

Edited April 9, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Larry Kart]

Perfectly, natch.

Actually, while I don't dislike much of anything that I liked back then, I do like some things now that I eventually turned my back on in the mid- to late-'50s -- e.g. a fair amount of things that bore (and probably deserved) the West Coast Jazz label and the roughly equivalent contemporary products of the East Coast studio scene, e.g. stuff that paired Hal McKusick and Art Farmer, charts by Manny Albam, etc., etc. All this, again, without giving up on the Blakey, Silver, Rollins et al. that led me to turn up my nose back then at the aforementionend more "polite" stuff. Further, I haven't given up on any of the Jelly Roll Morton-up-to-bop music that I loved backed then and have added a fondness for many of the popular Swing Era bands that I used to be a bit snotty about without much real knowledge or understanding e.g. Tommy Dorsey.

[Shawn]

Most of the music I listened to during the 80s and 90s (teens & 20s) has been filed away in the "been there, done that, don't need to experience it again" pile. I'm guessing about 20% of it I still like.

However, music from the late 60s and 70s I appreciate now more than ever. That's really the "golden age" for me, from like 1967-1977.

Jazz stuff I pretty much like all eras, with the lion's share being between 1957 to 1972 or thereabouts.

[A Lark Ascending]

Being more accepting of...even enthusiastic for...the music you did not care for at the time of your youth (and even more so, the music of before your youth) seems to be a natural development of ageing.

As Dylan put it in one of his wisest moments 'I was so much older then, I'm younger than that now' (much wiser than 'everybody must get stoned'!).

Edited April 9, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Noj]

I like even the corniest stuff I ever liked, even though some of it makes me laugh and I probably wouldn't play it around certain friends.

[Dan Gould]

Does this fall in that category, Jon?

[rostasi]

When chance brings one of those early tunes that defines a "time" for me,

sometimes it becomes a catalyst for more of the same. Sometimes I ride

it to exhaustion - its and mine. I can't really associate music with bad times,

so it's almost always a fun ride.

®ø∂

---

Now playing: Connie Jordan - I'm Gonna Rock Till My Rocker Breaks Down

[jazzbo]

I still don't like most of the stuff I didn't like when I was a teenager and young adult, but my testes have really expanded year by year to include a lot of stuff in the rock and classical realms.

[BeBop]

I still like everything I did in my early listening days, but my biases have changed quite a bit - from bigger groups to smaller; from really "inside" to "more out". But I'd probably buy 90% of the recordings in my collection today. Not bad for 40 years at it.

[jeffcrom]

Like others here, my tastes have expanded, but probably in different directions than many of you. My youthful love affair with rock was pretty short; when I was about 15 or 16 I discovered Bix Beiderbecke, Charlie Parker and Albert Ayler in quick succession. It's only been in the last few years that I really started listening to any rock again. A lot of the expansion of my tastes has been about the realization that there is a lot more to "soul jazz" than I was willing to admit in my youth.

A propos of nothing except for Dan's video post about - I played for a year or two in a one-nighter band with Rick Brunetti, the drummer with Bo Donaldson and the Heywoods. Nice guy, good drummer, and he had some really interesting stories. His sly grin in the video probably meant something like, "Yeah, this song is stupid, but man, are we getting laid!"

[Matthew]

I still love all the crap I loved growing up. For awhile, I tried to deny that fact, but about five years ago I decided to like what I like, and not worry about appearing hip or cool. I even have the satellite station 70s on 7 preset on my car radio and home system.

[AfricaBrass]

I too have come back around to the music that I loved when I was growing up. I went through years of being a music snob and consciously made the effort to stop being one. I realized I had become a jerk.

Now, I find myself listening to the rock music I liked when I was younger along with jazz, blues, reggae, bluegrass, country, classical and any other interesting music I can find. I'm much more open to different music than I have ever been. At the same time, I have lost track of much of the current music scene. I just don't know how to keep up with it anymore. I try to, but I'm not too successful. I had an enjoyable afternoon on Saturday listening to dubstep with my son. It's interesting that I missed out on that whole genre for so long.

[alocispepraluger102]

would some of us agree that many of our particular musical tastes are indulged and developed for social reasons?

[kinuta]

Interesting.

Maybe someone could start a 'What was the first 45 (or lp) you bought?'thread.

Mine were Ray Charles What'd I Say and a VeeJay compilation lp simply called 'The Blues'. That was around 1960, I was 14 and had to save for ages to get the lp. I still listen to much the same music as I did then . I think my first jazz lp was ' Mingus Oh Yeah' around 1962 or 1963.

[JSngry]

I set off some new dynamite every so often, just to blow everything up, just to see what gets truly obliterated and what eventually comes back and lands in the rubble.

Pretty much everything lands in the pile, including the remains of the new dynamite.

I don't think I have any actual "taste", I think I'm just a discriminating ho.

[JohnS]

The answer is YES. I discovered jazz in the 50s and the things I really liked then still sound great today. That's not to say I liked everything I heard back then, I didn't, the voyage of discovery took me from trad to big bands before I heard a couple of Prestige albums, then there was no looking back.

[A Lark Ascending]

would some of us agree that many of our particular musical tastes are indulged and developed for social reasons?

Undoubtedly - you see the impact of peer pressure all the time in musical taste as in other areas.

It's much stronger when you are younger, simply because you have experienced so little that you are more susceptible to those around you, magazines, radio and TV guiding you to what you ought to be listening to.

But at the same time there can also be a pretty powerful impulse to go the other way to those around you - parents and peers. There's that constant tension to wanting to be part and apart.

I went through much the same path as many have mentioned above. A totally indiscriminate start, then a period of what I thought of as being a follower of the more alternative style of rock of the early 70s (far less alternative than I believed at the time), then an early 20s of 'fine taste' and rejection of the 'petty' followed from my 30s onwards with a rapprochement with all I'd rejected.

As you get older I think you get much less affected by social pressure - especially if you are following your musical passion largely as a personal pleasure rather than as the communal activity of one's teens. But it still happens. You don't have to look much further than this board.

Right...back to a Swedish cattle calling record, just to ensure I've made my independence absolutely clear (though I'll drop in a Max Roach later on to ensure everyone knows I'm really part of the gang).

Edited April 10, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[Shawn]

I would say the only trend I'm consciously aware of is a tendency to "cast off"certain things and only focus on the items that truly "hit me". I still have an appreciation of everything in my past, but there are only select items that remain "in the now". Every once in awhile something sifts its way back to the surface, usually for a brief visit and then it returns back from whence it came.

The good news is that I'm still discovering music that thrills me, some new, some older items I was never exposed to. Luckily, the adventure continues, even if the big discoveries are in the past.

[A Lark Ascending]

The good news is that I'm still discovering music that thrills me, some new, some older items I was never exposed to. Luckily, the adventure continues, even if the big discoveries are in the past.

I'm with you there. I've never lost that hunger for the excitement that comes from being overwhelmed by an unfamiliar record or performer or genre.

Edited April 10, 2012 by A Lark Ascending

[BillF]

my testes have really expanded year by year

Boasting again!

[BillF]

Maybe someone could start a 'What was the first 45 (or lp) you bought?'thread.

Or 78 for my age group! Mine was Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" on the Brunswick label in 1956 when I was 16.

[A Lark Ascending]

The Moody Blues 'Question'. Condemned to un-hipdom for life.

Though the previous Xmas I bought Rolf Harris' 'Two Little Boys' for my mum!!!!

[ejp626]

would some of us agree that many of our particular musical tastes are indulged and developed for social reasons?

Not sure. I suppose I was more or less socialized to like rock/pop on the radio and then gravitated a bit to "alternative" rock in college. But probably 75% of my listening is to jazz/classical/world music, and I have virtually no one to discuss this with in my real life (as opposed to the Big O ). And I had started listening to jazz by my late teens. If it was just about fitting in socially, I wouldn't have followed that path. Also, where I grew up, there were no jazz clubs period, so there were no opportunities to meet fellow devotees. But perhaps I am misunderstanding the question.

[A Lark Ascending]

Social conditioning doesn't require the influence of people immediately around you.

I listened to nothing but the rock of the era of the early 70s. But there was almost an expectation that this was something you would outgrow and then move on to something 'deeper' like classical or jazz. Where did I pick that up? Parents (though they had no experience of 'high culture'), comments by teachers in school (I remember one head teacher very kindly smiling at my musical preferences and then trying to explain how Beethoven had so much more emotional depth; and a trendy English teacher laughing at my Hawkwind album and going on about jazz), even the 'what are you listening to' choices of my rock favourites in music magazines (Yes going on about Stravinsky and Sibelius, Henry Cow and Messiaen, the constant references to Coltrane and Miles amongst the Santana Mahavishnu axis). I clung tenaciously to my love of contemporary rock but all that pressure ate away - in some ways the arrival of punk gave me the excuse to break away into my 'fine taste' period.

I had no experience of jazz apart from what I saw on TV (Acker Bilk, Oscar Peterson) or occasionally heard on the radio. And all the classical I'd heard up to the mid-70s was the very popular stuff.

I suspect I was been driven partly by these social pressures, partly by curiosity and a wish to look the other way but above all by a wide-eyed, innocent ability to be very easily seduced by attractive, interesting and engaging music. Nothing much has changed there.

Edited April 10, 2012 by A Lark Ascending